November 4, 2010

So, then, how did this happen? Instapundit would unquestionably be #1, but Glenn had to take his public Site Meter down because it was interfering with ads. If you look at my Site Meter, Instapundit boostsmy traffic. The other thing is that the first chart ranks by the number of page views, but if you scroll down, there is a second ranking by the number of visitors. On that second chart, I'm second (to The Volokh Conspiracy ). That has something to do with clicking into the comments threads. Not that the comments at Volokh aren't good, but there's a bit more action in the comments here, so a special thanks to the commenters here — along with all the readers who don't comment. You make blogging great fun for me.

Seems to me Althouse is not as much as a legal blog as is Volokh--Althouse covers a much larger range of issues whereas Volokh stays mostly focused on legal discussions. Think we are talking apples and oranges here--but I enjoy both

I blame America's Politico and all of the push back he generated from the other commenters. With AP gone, your #1 ranking may tank...unless we could entice Ritmo to up his comment level to make up for losing AP. Nevermind. In all seriousness, it is probably the great photos and the Great Meade Story added to your skill at arguments. But like that rural hayseed Bill Shakespeare, we don't really believe a Wisconsin farmer's wife could be so creative without using an intellectually elite ghost Writer from Cambridge at Oxford.

My work requires me to sit at the computer. Need a break from time to time. Arguing with other morons over inconsequential political shit is a good way to divert the brain from programming problems.

Used to BS at 2Blowhards, but they went out of biz, because keeping it up was too much work.

You seem to have the perfect setup. Respectability, because you've got a plum job. The job doesn't seem to take up any of your time, which is great for you. And, you really don't focus on the legal stuff very much, which is good because that's pretty boring shit.

So, you put up a lot of posts and attend to your blog constantly. That seems to be essential.

I credit this blog for generally excellent topics that lend themselves to a range of quality debate. I believe that most of the commenters are people of good faith and the lefties participate with an abandon that nicely compensates for their lack of reasoning skills and numeracy. The comments usually confirm the dearth of humor on the left wing and the intellectual generosity and patience of the conservatives.

Well, you do have a great mix of commenters from both sides of just about every issue, and that is a big plus for your blog.

Compare your comment section to that of the outstanding blog Ace of Spades, for example. There are some very clever commenters over there, but it's an echo chamber by comparison.

But I think that you have that good mix of commenters solely because of you: You have a running thought-provoking dialog with your commentariat.

You don't just say "Heh. Read the whole thing." You make interesting and unique observations, and you really put yourself out there; you put a lot of your personality into your writing, in both style and substance. It tends to give some of us the impression that we know you better than we really do, I think.

As someone who reads both blogs daily (and then some), I'd say that the difference is that comments here tend to be more entertaining -- riffs off your posts and off of each other. Comments at VC tend to be a bit more earnest (and a bit more about being right). For my own part, I do click into comments here more often than into comments over at VC. ..bruce..

What other law blogs are worth reading? What attracts me here is a feminist professor who is somewhat conservative. I find that to be a regular ice cream sundae.

Plus, I like Meade, too.

I like people in academia who aren't part of the groupthink. There aren't many. I liked the Durham in Wonderland blog, too, but his blog is so minute in terms of what he covers. You're better because you do popular culture and popular politics, but also have an ability to go into more abstruse legal points from time to time.

But the main thing is that you're a conservative but also a feminist. I find that funny.

Althouse, Reynolds, and Volokh, the three blogs (along with Drudge) that I automatically launch. Wonder what my choices would have been if I had gone to medical school instead?

The difference between the Athouse and Volokh blogs is interesting. Since Volokh is a group blog, the articles tend to have in-depth analysis. Which is good and bad. Ann seems to blog almost as often as the entire stable over there, partially I think because some of her posts are light and others throw-away to get us going.

Another difference is that the discussions over at Volokh seem to be dominated by lawyers, plus a certain number of pre-lawyers and law profs. On the one hand, that means a better level of argument, but on the other hand, when there are heated discussions, they can be more vicious. Nevertheless, I have learned an extraordinarily amount of law in some depth there.

So, then, why do I spend more time over here? Partly, it feels more like a community at Ann's blog, though I have known some over at Volokh for upwards of a decade (and some of the Conspirators even longer). And, the discussions are, to me, more enjoyable here. Maybe because we have such an assortment of characters here. When essentially the same discussion is going on at both sites, I find Volokh more learned, and this one more enjoyable.

I heard that Volokh once tried to marry a commenter too to keep up, but she turned out to be a 250 Lb customer of Trooper's that Trooper put up to it as a joke. It seems Volokh was a known Mets and jets fan.

Actually Shouting Thomas, Ritmo is really not a bad guy out of the context of a heated political discussion. I feel the same about you. And garage. Even hd. We have to give each other a break now and then.

Mix it up all you want but at end of the Donnybrook we all need to go the cottage and Mary Kate can put supper on the table and we can have a few pints together. Just sayn'

Althouse' blog is hard to define. I think of it as an artsy blog because of the photography. It's eclectic, it isn't really a political blog, and I don't think of it as a law blog. And the threads tend to be pretty entertaining.

Look at Hewitt's blog, it dropped by 40%. Is that because he moved to Townhall? That site is so ugly and packed with ads and pop-ups I stopped reading it long ago and I don't even have it bookmarked. I gave up Hewitt back during the 2008 election when he went completely insane over Romney.

I read both blogs quite regularly. The Volokh blog is a little less fun because it has an inconsistent 'voice' because it's a wide group of individuals. Some posts are incredibly dense. Lots of info but way more of slog than I'm willing to devote to a blog post. There are also a couple of bloggers over there who pretty regularly troll the blog with posts that seem to have little purpose other than generating a food fight in the comments.

EV used to have a nifty feature (before the blog moved to wordpress) that would include or exclude specific authors by adding tags to the blog's URL. I really miss that.

Glenn Reynolds. I've pointed out several times he'll link here for no (apparent) reason.

After that, it's everything Pasta said at 10:35, especially freedom of speech. Althouse's comment section isn't an "echo chamber" - and Ann's no push over - so it works better than in the PC real world.

Trooper...Are those lines from John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara's film about customs of your Irish homeland? I saw that film again last week on TCM, and was surprised at how very much the personalities and attitudes shown by Ohara and her family members in The Quiet Man reminded me of older family on my mother's side. At least your lines were NOT lines quoted from Maureen Dowd.

Bruce Hayden said...Althouse, Reynolds, and Volokh, the three blogs (along with Drudge) that I automatically launch. Wonder what my choices would have been if I had gone to medical school instead?

I did go to medical school and Althouse and Reynolds are my favorite blogs. Ten years ago I liked Sullivan's blog but Andy lost me long ago-- even before his Palin fixation. Maybe I should have gone to law school instead of med school. Two of my sons are lawyers and the third one is a 1L now so I did sort of go to law school vicariously.

Althouse has moved on from pandering to the teapartiers to pandering to all her commenters, including a few of the teapartiers in her comments who lie, mislead, and smear. If this were my site and some of my commenters had a habit of lying, misleading, and smearing, I'd call them on it. I wouldn't delete their comments, I'd just tell them they should do things my way rather than the teapartier way.

Obviously, Althouse is different that way.

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Unfortunately, I have to add this:

Because teapartiers are vile idiots (see the link) I have to point out that there's a 99% chance that any replies to this comment from 'partiers will be full of lies and smears. That's who they are and what they do. No teapartier has ever been able to present a valid, logical counter-argument to anything I've ever written. Instead, all they can do is lie and smear. That's part of the reason why I encouraged everyone to hold their noses and vote for every one of their opponents. And, I'm basing that on covering politics for over eight years in over 9000 posts. I have never seen a more malignant group than the teapartiers. See my site for all the details.